(1740 - 1821), e. s. of Rev. Sir William Bunbury of Barton, Suff., and Bunbury, Ches.; educ. Westminster and St Catharine's Hall Camb. 1757; m. 1 1762 Ldy. Sarah Lennox, dau. of 2nd D. of Richmond (div. 1776), 2 Margaret Cocksedge; suc. fa. 1764 as 6th Bt.; MP 1761 - 84, 1790 - 1812.
1760 - 1 Turin (Apr. 1760), Rome (by 5 - 13 Jul.), Florence (Aug. - 13 Sep.), Venice (by 4 Nov. 1760 - spring 1761), Florence (by Aug. - Oct.), Venice (18 Nov.) [England by 10 Dec.]
Thomas Bunbury travelled with the 4th Viscount Torrington who was in Turin in April 1760.1 They had reached Rome by 5 July and had attended the festivities on the eve of the feast of St Peter with the Abb? Grant, John Mytton, the Hon. Thomas Robinson, a Mr Stewart [probably Charles Stuart] and a Mr Southwell; on 12 July the Abb? Grant conducted them to the Jesuit Museum, and on the following day they left for Florence.2 On 9 August Horace Mann told Horace Walpole that Bunbury would 'soon be convinced of the respect I owe to [your] introduction', adding on 13 September that 'Your recommande Mr Bunbury is a very knowing, agreeable young man, but too retired out of complaisance to his companion, Lord Torrington'.3 In Florence Torrington was interested in the disputed pictures which Lord Fordwich (later 3rd Earl Cowper) had bought from Thomas Jenkins and which Robert Strange thought copies, see Strange. Bunbury and Torrington appear in Patch's Punch Party dated 1760 (Dunham Massey) and also possibly in Patch's second Punch Party of 1761 (Chatsworth). Early in November Bunbury was in Venice, again meeting Thomas Robinson4 and Jacob Houblon.5 Torrington, who was seen in Venice in December,6 had declined an invitation from Sir James Gray, the British envoy, to winter in Naples,7 and in February 1761 he was apparently in Milan or Turin, languishing for love of a 'frozen nymph' whom he hoped to thaw by means of 'a shower of Sequins'.8 In the spring of 1761 he was one of the witnesses of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's will9 and in August 1761 he was back in Florence.(10) At the end of October he was preparing to leave11 and he arrived in Venice on 18 November with Lord Titchfield.(12) Bunbury had returned to England by the autumn;13 he had probably been with Torrington throughout the year.
1. Montagu Letters, 3:265n1. 2. Seafield MSS, gd 248/99/3 (Abb? Grant, 5, 12 Jul. 1760). 3. Wal.Corr., 21:431, 436. 4. Robinson letters MSS, vr12330 (4 Nov. 1760). 5. Houblon Family, 2:79. 6. SP 105/313, f.372 (Murray, 13 Dec. 1760). 7. SP 105/313, f.270 (Gray, 24 Oct. 1760). 8. A.S. Turberville, History of Welbeck Abbey, 2:36f. (J.Lyon, 10 Feb. 1761). 9. Montagu Letters, 3:264 - 5. 10. SP 105/313, f.588 (Murray, 22 Aug. 1761). 11. Wal.Corr., 21:543. 12. ASV IS 758. 13. Commons 2, 2:136 - 7.